Cell Projects

This page is an inventory of bodies of work that explore wonder, beauty, interconnectedness, reason, traits, evolution, healing, aging and death. Projects take form as monoprints, collages, artist books, portfolios and installations.

The below Cell Projects began exhibiting in 2018. The impetus for each project appears on their individual project pages. Overall, individual cells developed through the planned and unplanned layering of screen printed ink, often with serendipitous and unintended results. The process was in search of new relationships with an understanding that the world is an expression of happenings, not things.

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Cell Projects: The Backstory

I began inventing imaginary cells in 2016 to distract myself from making socio-political work, the focus of my printmaking for the previous 40 years. This biological focus eased my mind from the all-consuming contentious 2016 Presidential election campaign which was more like a cannibalistic circus then a demonstration of civil democracy. This conceptual shift towards beauty and wonder soon became part of my studio focus. 

I created the artist book Between the Burners to aid the transition from politically motivated printmaking to more celebratory printmaking. The project’s intention was to get politics out of my head with a single ambitious print focused work. The book pages collage repurposed older prints (back burner issues) with new prints (front burner issues) made specifically for the book. The book exposes the vulnerabilities facing us with each four year election cycle. 

While traveling abroad, I watercolored cellular inventions to relax and to focus my sketchbook work on celebrating life rather than on the dramas and contradictions of human behavior. Inspired by science writing and an impetus to explore living systems, biological focused projects soon occupied part of my art practice.

Earlier Influences, pre 2016

Earlier projects have influenced Cell Projects, conceptually and technically. Two are presented here.

Beginning in 2011, the Nests series employed experimental approaches using screen printing to repetitively print a single pattern into more complex circular structures. This project is significant as the process is a shift towards producing one-of-a-kind hand-pulled prints rather then editioning a numbered set of prints.

In 2014, Eric Kneeland and I screen printed directly on the gallery wall during the opening reception of Wabi Sabi: Impermanence, Imperfection, and the Accidental. The wall composition evolved on-the-spot from screens we brought to the event and from audience suggestions. Eric brought screens with maps on them (daily routines, favorite hikes . . .) , Kent brought screens with human body parts (organs, cells, vertebrate . . .). This project contributed to allowing work to evolve without a master plan, embracing the evolution of work through performance, and acceptance of the consequences of experimentation.

Read Full Journal Article:
The California Printmaker, Changing Gears, California Society of Printmakers, 2023